August 31, 2004

Nice. I said before that I'd like a lampshade-style iMac, but Apple just announced the new iMac G5, which is not much bigger than a standard flat-panel monitor. I think Mrs. Lockard would find working on this machine a lot easier than her current laptop. And for $1,300, the baseline 17" model is not a bad deal at all.

Also: Skype (VoIP software for computers) is now available, in beta, for OSX. I've used the alternative, a SIP-based phone made by Cisco, and while it was very cool (think of this idea: carry a phone with you wherever you go. Find an outlet and an RJ45 jack, plug it in, and call England for nothing more than the monthly fee—in my case, something like $10) it wasn't as simple as being able to do it from my laptop, which would be sweet. If you can get past the cellphone-like lag time, it's *almost* as good as the real deal.

Dumb House News. There is now a working light in our linen closet. I have still to do the finish sanding, but it should be ready for shelving in the next few weeks, after the bathtub access hatch is finished off. Rejoice! | link

August 30, 2004

Blue Monday. I'm bored, bummed, and in a bad mood. Happy monday. In happier news, the hospital is kicking Mrs. Lockard to the curb today or tomorrow, which is a step in the right direction. She looks a million times better than last week (I spent saturday night with her.)

My Airport Extreme Base Station showed up on Saturday when nobody was at work. Thanks, guys. No word on when it will make a return appearance.

The two second-floor bedroom windows are scraped, glazed, primed and painted with gloss white. I'm going to have to hit them a second time before replacing the storm windows, but the house is looking less and less like it's abandoned. I would have worked more yesterday but between the lack of sleep and high humidity, I made like a potato and sat on the couch for most of the evening. | link

August 27, 2004

Oh, Yeah. Jen reminded me the other day that this is the year anniversary of our move to the new house. To celebrate, I'm going to share some information with you about greenhouses that I collected last night while trying to hunt down replacement sheeting plastic. Here's a link to 3 mil greenhouse plastic sold by the roll, which would be cheap and easy to install for the winter. Here's another link for 4-year 6 mil plastic. Then I got to thinking about overwintering our plants and retaining the heat, so I looked into dual-wall polycarbonate sheeting | link 2 , which would take a lot more work to install (and a lot more money to buy and ship.) All this leads me to the subject of sustainable growing, something I'd love to be able to accomplish—install solar panels, collect energy, and heat the greenhouse without using outside electricity. I found a few articles on sustainable greenhouse farming. And, of course, some articles from the fringe. All of this is food for thought.

Parking Lot. Nate hosted a showing of Heavy Metal Parking Lot in his cube yesterday, and I spent the rest of the day reliving my high school days curled in the fetal position under my desk. No, I didn't wear acid-washed jeans or Scorpions concert T-shirts, but I lived in a town full of metal-lovin' burnouts just like the folks in this movie. Seeing the crowds of shirtless, scraggly delinquents leaning against their Novas chugging Natural Light brought me back to the confusing, illogical years between sophomore and senior year. (We had moved from a very WASPish town in Conneticut to a blue-collar town over the border in New York. The distance between the two towns, geographically only miles, could have been universes in my experience.) This was a town which, before the current boom in building, was still in the sticks, scant years beyond rolling pastureland. A town where, after the roller rink was closed (mercifully only a year or two before we moved there), the evening's entertainment consisted of drinking and driving to the 7-11 for more beer, then hanging out in the parking lot and waiting to hear about the nearest kegger. Where the local Barney Fifes were during all this, I'll never know.

As the member of a small, persecuted minority, I lived a pretty quiet existence, preferring to live in the fringes than invite ridicule, scorn, and pain upon my skinny body. I remember overhearing earnest, serious discussions at the lunch table over who was more "Metal"—arguing the merits of guitar speed or vocalist (usually Hammett vs. Tipton or Halford vs. Ozzy, ending with a sentence like, "Duuude, Priest RUUUUUULLEES!" punctuated with the Holy Metal Horn Salute); being threatened with bodily harm because of the Police and R.E.M. stickers on my binder cover; laughing under my breath at the gaggle of burnouts huffing Marlboros under the roofed "smoking lounge" outside the band room door; and, upon spying a magazine titled "Metal and Leather", featuring the singer of Judas Priest, knowing the score with that dude immediately.

I can now look back on those days and laugh, because not only were most of the burnouts skinnier and in worse shape than I, but because I've run into some of them since those days and they haven't changed. I've been through Glen Burnie—where several of the HMPL subjects called home—and they still have that same Monte Carlo. Up on blocks in their parents' front yard. My irrational fear of them was unfounded—it would have been easier for some of them to finish a full year of school than to beat my ass. (Understand: I was 125 lbs. fully clothed in high school, so the spectre of iminent beat-down hung heavy over my head at all times.) Luckily, I got out of there and went to art school, where that group of antisocial wackos got switched with a whole new bunch. But that's a different story. Interesting side notes: the 'featured subjects' in HMPL are from the suburban towns in and around Baltimore, and the only thing worse than a burnout with a proto-Brooklyn accent is a burnout with a heavy Maryland accent. Words cannot describe. | link

August 26, 2004

Back From The Dead. I took the Base Station back apart yesterday when I had a minute to spare, and got it down to its base guts: screws, motherboard, WaveLan card, wiring, case. I put it all back together and plugged it in for one final try, and seemed to work fine. Later, when I got it home and ran it for more than a half hour, it died, leading me to believe that the capacitors are, in fact, toast. (I was attempting to prove the Second Dugan Law Of Fixing Stuff, which goes like this: If you can take it apart and put it back together, there's about a 60% chance it'll work again, because something came loose. This is highly unscientific, of course.) I'm going to order the capacitor fix kit online and attempt to get it running again.

Phase Two. This afternoon I'm going to begin the next part of the housepainting project, which involves lots of ladderwork, removal of storm windows, hours of fun with window glazing, cursing, beer, primer and paint, more beer, and replacement of the storm windows. Today I'm going to pull as many of the storms off the front of the house as possible, mark them, and get ready for Saturday. I can't say that I'm looking forward to this job (this involves something like 25 full-size windows, not counting the atrium) but I'll be very happy when it's done. | link

August 25, 2004

Merchandise. I posted my 100-disc CD changer on Craigslist this morning after several abortive attempts through the Pennysaver. (Lots of calls from sleepy-sounding methheads asking what color it is. Go away, freak-boy.) Selling this will hopefully finance some other minor electronic purchases that I'd like to make.

Question. Jen and I were talking last night about TV theme songs, and she brought up the album that got made back in the 90's where rock stars remade a bunch of their favorite tunes. We then tried to think of the song we'd cover if our respective Imaginary Rock Bands hadn't broken up (over creative differences, naturally.) She mentioned Electro-Woman and Dyno-Girl. I voted for the Fat Albert theme and the Underdog song, only to find they were both covered already. What TV theme would you cover if your IRB was still together? | link

August 24, 2004

ford v-8, frederick, 7.24.04

Album of the Day: Sparta, Porcelain. From the punk ashes of At The Drive-In, this band rises to rock you out. (The iTunes biography calls them emo, but I don't know where the line between rock and emo is drawn these days.)

Thanks to everybody offering support to my lovely wife during the '04 Lockard World Hospital Tour; between cards, calls, and online shout-outs, I think she must feel a lot less lonely.

Random Fun Links: Airport Express Tips. In case you have $129 laying around asking to be spent. | Tricks of the Trade from the man known as Defective Yeti. (The butcher tip is fascinating.) | Recycle your old computer. Office Depot and HP are running a free recycling program until early September. Save some environment. | link

August 23, 2004

The 21st Century. We here on the East coast are a bit behind the times where some things are concerned. Five years ago, when I used to hear about newfangled technologies and web services, I thought "Gee, that's a swell idea, but it'll take fifteen years to reach us here in Baltimore." Webvan, Pets.com—great ideas, but not available in this backwater city.

So imagine my surprise when I found out that Peapod, which is owned by the Giant grocery chain, is now offering online shopping and delivery service in the Baltimore area. That's right, for a minimum order of $50, you can have somebody drop off the milk, eggs, bread, and TP to your house when you're there, or even when you're not. I'd like to test it out sometime soon to see how well it works. Then maybe we might set up a bimonthly dropoff of the staples just so we can save the time and hassle of picking them up.

In other consumer news, I broke down today and bought a refurbished Airport Extreme Base Station to replace the first unit that died with the liquor return money we got from our wedding supplier. (Gotta love wholesalers, baby!) After doing a pile of research on the other alternatives out there, I decided to give the big A another shot. | link

August 22, 2004

Tarred. It's about quarter to eleven. I'm sitting in front of my computer drinking a cold Corona, nibbling on some corn chips, and I'm thankful for the Corona, the chips, and the ability to use the toilet when I want to.

I spent the last 24 hours with Mrs. Lockard in Georgetown, pulling a 24-hour shift while everybody else rested. Her family has been staying in the room as on-call nurses, providing companionship, making sure she gets immediate attention and getting the correct information from the various doctors who visit. My wife inherited a familiar stubborn streak from her parents, and comes by it honestly: Mrs. Lockard would hoist herself out of bed and crawl to the bathroom without aid, so somebody has to be there to keep an eye on her. Besides leveling her immune system, the chemo did a number on her memory recall, so she doesn't remember what the doctors have told her from one minute to the next. So Jen started keeping The Book. The Book sees everything—from the embarassing to the important. It's a record of her progress, of her climb out of the gutter and into the big ball return of life. Years from now, when this experience is a memory, the family will know how many times she ate popsicles and what color they were; how many bowel movements on a given day; or what goofy shit she said while hallucinating the first week. There are funny notes to each other in The Book, as well as lusty 4am ramblings about the primary care doctor. (He is pretty hot; I'd believe all this care was purely philanthropic if I didn't actually witness the Lockard women ovulating when he enters the room.)

I saw a lot of Mrs Lockard this weekend (more than I wanted to, frankly—those gowns tend to fall open in the back) and I was nervous going into Saturday night. I'm not a fan of hospitals, doctors, needles, or machines that beep at four in the morning. I've only been there for a six-hour shift before this weekend, while others have put full weeks in at the hospital. So I feel unworthy to have been present for two huge leaps in her progress: I would much rather have one of her sisters been present for the first triumphant trip to the bathroom. Or Jen to have been there for the look on her mother's face when they brought her first solid food in a month. I haven't put the time in, and I know they could use those boosts more then me.

So I'm going to enjoy my chips and salsa, drink my Corona, and enjoy a trip to the bathroom this evening. If any of the family is reading this, know this: she had a good day. | link

August 20, 2004

Hiatus. Busy day yesterday; hence the quiet around here. I came into a collection of about 10 gigs of music yesterday, none of it catalogued or tagged, so I'm running it all through a program to re-encode the ID3v2 metadata. which is tedious and annoying. Lots of little time-consuming jobs here at work, plus lots of stuff to do when we're home. Jen's Mom is holding steady in a state of suck right now, and her brother is flying in from Savannah to see her tonight. Jen's with her today, he'll have tomorrow, and I'm picking up the following day to spell everybody.

Meanwhile there's lots of news in the world that I've peripherally noticed—the EFF won the Grokster case, which is good news; there's an excellent article in the New Yorker on Bjork—accompanying photos (via kottke), as well as a story about a NYC cheese seller that's not online; We're currently reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for a book club, and I happened upon this link to original pictures from Pirsig's trip. Meanwhile, the Usual bullshit still applies.. | link

August 18, 2004

On Cameras and Customer Service. Having found the use of my 2nd-gen Kodak DC-3400 rough going, Jen left it at home to sit on the shelf. I decided that she'd take the G3 and I'd soldier on with the Kodak until we can muster the cash for a second prosumer-level camera. One drawback to this camera is its voracious battery appetite, which means that I need to invest in better rechargable batteries or buy stock in Duracell.

By the way, Avoid the Ritz Camera on Rt. 40 in Ellicott City, where they overexposed three of four rolls Jen dropped off there, effectively ruining 72 beautiful photographs of Italy she took. Worse, the bitch behind the counter claimed that Jen's camera was bad (a nearly new Nikon N-65), we'd run them through the X-ray machine (we hadn't), and the film was bad (all four rolls were from the same pack, bought three days before we boarded the plane.) At no time did she offer a refund or try to make us happy. Fuck Ritz Camera.

Success? After one solid year of the run-around by BG&E, it appears our problems are solved. I got a turn-off notice for an unpaid bill of $250, and called to straighten it out. After one call to their bill pay computer (which helpfully told me the balance due was $350, I called the CSR back and had her hunt the problem down. As it turned out, I have a credit of $350 on the other account—the one I kept telling them about. Oh, and the bills still weren't merged. Of course, now that I've jinxed myself, I'll probably wind up owing them money again, or the electricity will get shut off.

That's Wrong. Did anybody happen to see the Olympics last night where they were showing Women's Gymnastics? There was some Russian chick there who was absolutely frightening: She was about two feet taller and 50 lbs. lighter than the other women on her team, and it looked like she was going to snap in half. I had to turn my head when she landed her vault routine, because I thought she was going to break. Have a Big Mac or three, honey. (I realize I'm not the best person to be telling somebody else to gain weight, but I'm not an Olympic athlete.) | link

August 17, 2004

Music Of The Day: The Shocking Pinks, Us Against The City. I feel as if I'm in a rocking disco, circa 1977. The Secret Machines, Nowhere Again. I didn't like it at first, but it's growing on me like a fungus. The Go! Team, Ladyflash. This is kind of like a 60's revival of Junior Senior with samples.

Temptation Awaits. The Baltimore Craigslist has a listing for a "rust-free" '67 Dodge Coronet with a 318 2-barrel, for $800. Is it wrong of me to want to look at this car? How about replying to the e-mail I got from a guy in New Jersey who still has Scout parts for sale, two months after I contacted him (the week the Tortoise died?)

One With Nature. Ever since we moved in to the new house, I've been eyeing the trees surrounding our property warily. The tall, leafy canopy was a selling point when we looked at the house, but I knew I'd have to do some serious pruning when I got the time—the doctor had let it go for a couple of years, and they were all enveloping the house and garage.

Last night I finally spent some of my dwindling discretionary cash on a 20' arbor saw, something I've lusted after for a year now. I have memories of my father, wearing a work hat (a green BASAGRAN trucker's cap—he was ahead of his time) and a determined look, using his arbor saw to trim the trees on our property. I now know why he made us haul all that brush. It's an addictive job! (The cutting, not the hauling. The hauling sucked ass.) In five minutes I had trimmed two large problem branches from the cedar in the front yard, and dusk found me on the roof of the garage cutting swaths of ghetto palm away from the phone wiring. There's still a lot more to do (walking on a pitched roof with a 20' pole is not the smartest thing to do in the dark), but it was a good start. Now to figure out how to haul the huge pile of brush away.

The other thing I bought was a pole hook for the $0.75 garage sale bird feeder, and I put it outside the kitchen window in the hopes that the cardinals and jays will return. | link

August 16, 2004

The Pumpkin That Ate Catonsville. Last year, I carved a pumpkin and put it out on our front doorstep with some others. They looked pretty good, if I do say so myself, and they lasted about a week and a half before the squirrels started munching on them. Fast forward eight months. One of them critters musta buried one of the seeds, because Jen pointed out a strange vine growing from beneath the cedar tree in the side yard. We couldn't identify it, so we left it to see what would happen. Imagine our surprise when it continued to grow exponentially and start to bloom! Todd identified it as a pumpkin, and that's what we're going with unless it starts sprouting rutebegas or something. Two weeks ago, it had grown around the side of the house and out onto the front lawn—we had to wind it back on itself so I could mow—and I'd guess it's probably about twenty feet long when stretched out. I hope it begins producing soon...

Meanwhile, I got another coat of paint on the front and east side of the house (the sides that got rolled, not sprayed) which means that next weekend I should be able to start on the windows. We, for better or for worse, have the original wooden double-hung sashes, and they are all showing wear from several years of neglect. Hopefully with new glazing, caulking and a coat of paint, they'll last us another twenty years.

It's Your Shift. Saturday evening I drove down to Georgetown to take an overnight shift with Jen's Mom, who has been making slow, steady progress since her unscheduled helicopter delivery two weeks ago. Besides looking better, Mrs. Lockard is coherent, able to respond to questions, and her memory is improving. She's still battling the aftereffects of the chemotherapy, but the difference in her condition since last weekend is remarkable.

The accomodations for visitors are pretty decent on the bone cancer ward. They have provided a lopsided, squeaky pull-out bed for the family which guarantees the need for a chiropractor. The coffee from the vending machine in the basement seems to be brewed from pure cane sugar (but man, that'll wake your ass up for the drive home) and the selection of sugary treats is a welcome relief after the circuitous route through the hospital from the single unlocked entrance door to the ward.

However, I have to put all these minor complaints aside and give thanks to the hospital for letting the family stay with her at all. I think having company in that lonely place has brightened (and probably shortened) the recovery period for Mrs. Lockard, and that's a small price to pay. | link

Friday The 13th, 2004

I Hope You're Reading This. I took Jen out to dinner on Wednesday not only because we had nothing to eat in the house, but because we needed to debrief over alcoholic beverages after a week of absurdity featuring various family members. Last night the hilarity continued, to the point where my blood pressure rose above stroke level. Suffice it to say that some people need to work on their own responsibility, accountability, and consistency issues before they start lecturing other people. Got that, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman?

Airport Update. Because I like to tinker with stuff and take it apart, I cracked the case on my Base Station this morning to troubleshoot the problem. Apparently there are three main causes for failure: blown capacitors in the power supply (by most accounts the most prevalent), corrupted firmware, or a bad WaveLan Card. (Essentially the Base Station is a tiny computer motherboard with a PCMCIA wireless card soldered on.) From what the troubleshooting information says, I don't have blown capacitors, and the reset should have taken care of bad firmware, so my thinking is that it's the card. I'm going to ask a coworker with a laptop to help me run a diagnostic on the card (Lucent never made a diagnostic for OSX and their support is spotty) this afternoon, and we'll see if we can figure out what the story is. | link

August 12, 2004

Song Of The Day: Manic Depression, Stevie Ray Vaughn. A fellow coworker hooked me up with a pile of good live SRV, which is sort of like trying a little crystal meth: you're immediately hooked. Absolutely good stuff.

Update. the iTunes problem I talked about yesterday, which has been giving me fits, is still a problem. The script I ran to fix the problem only works on about 30% of the missing tracks, so it's back to manually updating each file, which is a load of fun.

Last night Jen and I walked down the street to Matthew's 1600, the recently refurbished restaurant within spitting distance from the house, for a drink and some dinner. While the work they did on the place is high-quality, the atmosphere is distinctly Airport Hotel. There's a lack of any sort of personality to the place, and the way the layout of the bar side is arranged, it's too wide-open for any kind of cozy gathering. We had a drink at the bar (Bass on tap, thank God) and then settled into a booth for some dinner. The menu is pretty uninspired, and while I was in the mood for comfort food, I'd expect a plate of meatloaf to have some more spice to it, or at least some kind of zing in the mashed potatoes. Jen's steak and crabcake was much better—the beef was tender and flavorful, and the crab was real. Overall it wasn't too bad- the service was first-class and very attentive, but the food needs more help. (The proximity of the bar to our front door is going to be very dangerous, however.)

It's Worse Than That. He's Dead, Jim.I brought our Airport Base Station in to work this morning to test it out in a different environment. Yesterday it began to drop out on us, and this morning it was giving us intermittent connectivity. Hopefully I won't have to replace it, but I'm not confident that it can be revived. (Sound of more money flying out the window) Helpful links: Reset a Graphite Base Station | Graphite LED Behavior | General troubleshooting. (Update: Looks like it's D.O.A. I reset the Base Station, uploaded the new software, and restarted it. It lights, but it doesn't send any signal. *sigh*) | link

August 11, 2004

An iTunes Hint. Suddenly, one day a few months ago, about 10% of the tracks in my iTunes library suddenly went missing (The little "!" circle showed up in the left column.) I opened up one of the missing tracks, iTunes asked me if I wanted to find it, and I opened the folder to find the track right where it was supposed to be—iTunes had simply "forgotten" it. I searched for a month for a fix for this problem, until I found the solution on an iTunes scripting site: Run Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Repair and choose Repair Permissions. (Close iTunes first.) Problem solved. Not solved. I had to run a script called iTunes Track CPR to fix a lot of the busted track info. I'll update you more as I clean up the directory. | link

August 10, 2004 - Happy Birthday baby!

My Lovely Wife. Today is Jen's birthday. She spent the night at the hospital with her mother, who is still doing poorly, and is heading home today for a much-needed break. Throw her some love today—she could use it.

Song Of The Day: Shake Your Blood, Probot & Lemmy Kilmeister. This song makes me want to go out and drive fast all over somebody else's lawn.

That Big Bag Of Money. Because I live to torture myself, I went looking online for Scout parts today. The expensive list goes something like this:

Body Tub - fiberglas	$3,100
Front fenders (outer) fiberglas	$560
Front fenders (inner) fiberglas	$580
Hood - fiberglas	$410
Doors - Fiberglas	$1,700
Tailgate - Fiberglas	$410
Windshield - Fiberglas	$460
TOTAL (gulp)	$7220

I'd like to buy fiberglas because it's going to last much longer than steel ever would, and repairs would be easy as well. There is a chance I could salvage and repair my doors, hood, and the spare windshield sitting in my garage, but all that work is out of the question until I can repair/replace the garage and start fresh again. I'm also increasingly afraid that I'm not going to be able to get a new Scout tub much longer, given their relative scarcity. In the meantime, I need to find a dry place to store Chewbacca out of the elements while I gather the parts. So the main job will be to save up for the tub and have it delivered. Then, if the rebuilding program is still in effect, I'll send out the 304 for an overhaul. | link

August 9, 2004

Two Different Kinds Of Tired. Jen got back from the hospital late last night, after spending most of the day with her mother. Mrs. Lockard is in a holding pattern right now, alternately being fed intravenously and pumped full of antibiotics to stave off the infection in her intestines. She's horribly photosensitive right now, which means all the lights in her room are off and visitors sit in the dark, and she's in and out of lucidity from the pain medication—which means she's often hallucinating or talking nonsense. I fixed my wife a big tall drink and she decompressed over a bowl of fresh guacamole, which seemed to make her belly happy and put her mind at ease. We both hit the rack at midnight and slept through the first two hours of the alarm clock this morning.

Review, Part Deux. I'm into chapter two of the CSS book, and I'm finding it slower going. My previous comment on having a strong CSS background holds twice as firm now—there's a lot of good information here, but you'd better know your stuff before you sit down. There's a lot of stuff I was aware of but had not used yet, such as descendant selectors, which is going to take time to learn. I'm thinking that a companion book is in order for more of the basic-level stuff. | link

August 8, 2004

No Funny Headline Here. Yesterday Jen and I traveled to Georgetown Hospital to see her mother, who has been moved to the bone marrow ward (although she has no bone marrow of her own, nor white blood cells, this is the best place for her to be right now) and is still touch-and-go. She looks small, and pale, and very tired, but still has a funny sense of humor about a very bleak situation.

before/after, catonsville, 8.8.04

Today I stuck around the house to catch up on yardwork; the place had a run-down air to it after two weeks of neglected mowing. I tried out our $5 weed whacker and my $.25 clippers, taking all the trees in my reach to task. One massive pile of brush later, the yard looks much better. I also got the fourth side of the house painted, which makes the place look complete. | link

August 6, 2004

I bought the Eric Meyer book at Border's this morning, paying the extra $15 just to have it now (quite a penalty, when Amazon is throwing in free shipping), but so far it's pretty decent. I'd recommend having a good grasp of CSS before you start, as there's stuff in the first chapter he's hitting you with that you may or may not be familiar with. (The book assumes you have a working grasp of CSS and its properties, but haven't really made the leap to CSS layout.) I'm halfway through the first chapter, and it's a good study so far.

Airplane Ride. Jen drove to the LP City last night after work to see her Mom, and got about ten minutes in with her before they threw her on a medevac chopper to Georgetown University Hospital. Mrs. Lockard is resting now, but things continue to seesaw between Bad and Nearly As Bad.

Unable to join Jen for what was planned as an overnight stay, I accepted the invitation of a couple guys at work to mountain bike last night, which meant I had to dust off Andre The Giant and try to locate all of my biking gear. We rode a reasonably easy trail up at Loch Raven, which predictably kicked my out-of-shape butt three ways to Sunday. (not to mention it feels like I've been kicked by a horse back there.) But it did feel good to get outside and ride again. | link

August 5, 2004

In preparation for a CSS overhaul of this humble site, I waded through the HTML code and removed about 5kb of gunk from the style sheets, script includes, and other areas. Consolidating the style sheets has changed around the look a little bit, but overall it's not much different. I'm heading to the B&N tonight to peek at a couple of books before I buy anything. I also updated the music links on the right with some new tasty stuff. I've been playing two tracks over and over: Xtal, by Aphex Twin, and Man Research by Spacemonkeyz vs. Gorillaz.

Baby News. Nate and Kristen had a 6 lb. 4oz. baby boy (name yet to be determined) yesterday at 2:45pm. Mother, baby, and stressed dad are doing well, from what we hear.

Thursday Fun Links. Fish! | Origins of the IMDB. Disclosure: I spend at least 5 minutes each day on that site. Genius! (via metafilter) | link

August 4, 2004

dry cleaners, catonsville, 7.28.04 (soon to be demolished)

Update. Things with Jen's Mom don't look good. Given that she's battled back against cancer for 10 years, we'll wait to see what actually happens, but I've been told by all parties this is the worst it's ever been. Then again, getting a straight answer out of any Lockard besides the one I married is sort of like trying to find water in the desert, so who knows what's happening.

The List. (The wednesday edition.)

1. A New Mattress. (Our current big-people mattress ties Jen's back into knots. Somewhere around a grand, most likely.)
2. A dishwasher. (Because it's 2004, and contemplating a lifetime of dirty dishes requires gallons of vodka. $300, plus kitchen-wrangling)
3. A dehumidifier. (Our basement is possibly the second largest swamp on the east coast besides Florida. $130, give or take.)
4. Air Conditioning. (Summer in Maryland is ok. Until August, when it becomes the Ninth Circle Of Hell. $3,000+, depending on the size of the unit.)
5. Floor refinishing in the living room. (It would be great to have this done before next summer.)
6. Fixing Jen's iPod. (Somewhere around $70, I think.)

As with everything else, this list is in a state of constant flux. I'll just keep adding to and amending it as life keeps throwing curveballs at us.

No word on Jen's Mom yet, but our friends Nate and Kristen are at the hospital right now, hopefully having success with the birth of their first child. So send some love out their way as well. | link

August 3, 2004

By now you may know that Jen's Mom, who has been battling various forms of cancer for the better part of a decade, is in pretty rough shape in the ICU. She went in for another round of chemo a few days ago and what was supposed to be a slow decent into side-effect hell turned out to be an express train. Throw some love down L-P City way, and hope for the best.

Wow. My cube neighbor Tim picked up a copy of Doom3 last night, and a whole group of people crowded around his machine to look at it before we left work. The game is absolutely beautiful. It's terrifying fun—think of the movie Aliens, and you're inside that environment. The setting is perfectly realized, the lighting is absolutely intense, and then attention to detail is stunning. If I had a good PC, I'd consider buying a copy, but I don't have anything near the system requirements.

How to be creative. Yeah, I know, some of it is common sense, but some of it is good reality-check content. Keep the dream alive, my friends. | link

August 2, 2004

Trip Report. We're back from the lake. The trip was blessedly cool, calm, and refreshing, but way too short. We spent Friday previewing the Route 90 Sale north of my parents' house, where Jen and I picked up a pair of 30's era New York license plates and an old-time folding ruler. (A brief explanation: The Route 90 Sale is a yearly communal yard sale where everybody along the road empties their basements, attics, and storage sheds onto the front lawn, hoping someone will buy something. It's become a Central New York State tradition, bringing throngs of rubbernecking dealers, tourists, rednecks, and space aliens into the area to rifle through piles of junk.) Saturday we helped my family set up tables in front of the house, and then hit the road for an afternoon of picking through glassware, toys, glassware, old clothes, glassware, and junk. We actually made out alright in some departments—for a grand total of about $25, we picked up a wheelbarrow, seeder, cordless weed whacker, three milk glass vases, and a red glass "exit" sign. (There would be pictures linked right about here, but it rained off and on all day.) Saturday evening my folks hosted a very informal barbecue on the porch where we got to visit with a bunch of family and tell stories, which is always a highlight of any visit.

Sunday we helped set up the ½-price sale and set out for Baltimore. Halfway out of the county we spied two wooden bedframes on the side of the road and picked them both up for $30—antique sizes which don't quite fit a full and are too big for a twin. We'll have to do some finagling with them to make them work.

Meanwhile, somewhere below Wilkes-Barre, we started noticing people lined up on highway overpasses as we traveled south, waving at cars. Further down the road, we saw people lining the onramps and clogging the rest areas, sitting contentedly on lawn chairs facing the road. After some discussion, Jen correctly guessed that there was a NASCAR event nearby and that the locals, who had nothing better to do, were waving at the team trucks as they drove out of the state to the next event.

Dear People of the State of Pennsylvannia:

I have to drive through your huge, boring state to get to my parents' house. Could you please get off your beer-drinking, NASCAR-watching asses and fix your damn roads? I mean, seriously, there are potholes large enough to swallow my Jeep up there. We cross the state line from New York and it's like we've driven straight into Beirut. And, not to notpick on you here, but when you do work on them, could you do it quickly? there's a stretch of I-83 that's been "under construction" since Eisenhower, and the Jersey-wall bobsled hamster cage thing is getting old.

Love, Bill. | link

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